The week that was: 16 July 2010
Royal Mail extends opening hours, TNT looks to grow, and DP DHL states that a new era is upon us… Another week has flown by and it’s time for ‘the week that was’. Catch up with all the latest industry news here, before relaxing for the weekend.
Big news in the UK this week where it was announced that Royal Mail is adding almost a quarter of a million extra hours a year to the opening times of its busiest UK delivery offices. The move is aimed at making it easier for people to receive items they have ordered online or from a catalogue. The £2.6m investment will see the hours of around 650 delivery offices – almost half of Royal Mail’s UK-wide network of 1,400 sites – extended to 8pm on Wednesday evenings and 2pm on Saturdays to make the collection of items even more convenient for people who are not at home during the day. This week 200 delivery offices will open their doors until 8pm and around 350 offices will join the programme later in the summer. This follows a successful trial at 100 delivery offices in May. Mike Brown, Royal Mail’s fulfilment director, said: “The majority of items ordered online are delivered first time but this investment by Royal Mail will help people who are not at home during the day to receive their item in cases where it is too big to go through the letterbox or needs a signature.
Staying in the UK for now, TNT Post has said it is to expand its workforce by a fifth, increase its regional presence and invest significantly in its operations by the end of the year. Nick Wells, chief executive of TNT Post in the UK, said: “Our incredible growth is owed to the way we have continued to innovate the postal market – from hybrid mail services to our new next day delivery offering, FirstSort. It is this commitment to innovation, quality of service and intelligent account management which keeps UK organisations, large and small, public and private, coming to TNT Post for a truly unique approach to postal services.” TNT said it will increase its workforce by 20% this year; an expansion which will take TNT Post’s staff to more than 1000 employees across the UK. New roles will also be created across TNT Post’s national van fleet which is to be centralised to provide flexibility of coverage across the country. These investments build on the company’s growth over the past six years since it began operations in the UK, handling 300m items in its first full year, to over 2.66bn items in 2009. In this time, TNT Post has opened a network of five regional offices covering Scotland, the North, the Midlands, London and the South East and the South West. Good news all round for the industry!
In Germany this week, Deutsche Post described its newly launched hybrid mail service as “a new era in mail communication”. Customers are now able to reserve their personal “E-Postbrief” address.”We’re making secure written communication on the Internet possible for everyone – this is a revolution,” said Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL. “This innovation fits to our Strategy 2015 like a glove: It will make our customers’ lives easier and strengthen us to remain THE Post for Germany.” The “E-Postbrief” allows private individuals, companies and public authorities to communicate securely with each other on the Internet. The “E-Postbrief” is just as binding, confidential and reliable as a letter – and just as quick as an e-mail. “We’re bringing the confidentiality of letters to the Internet,” said Jürgen Gerdes, board member in charge of MAIL. “The ‘E-Postbrief’ will make our most successful product, the letter, even better. It is still a letter, but will be even quicker.” An “E-Postbrief” will cost exactly the same as a traditional letter – 55 euro cents. Users can choose whether their letter will be delivered electronically to another “E-Postbrief” account or be printed out by Deutsche Post and delivered by the mail carrier.
It will be intriguing to see how many companies from across the world will now place added emphasis on developing their own hybrid services – which will make for a very interesting PosTech conference in India this December.
And finally…
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